How much should my design cost?

A lot.

Great custom design should cost a lot.

There’s a hilarious scene in Defending Your Life were Albert Brooks is picking up his new BMW. The salesman points out a shiny silver car and says, “Isn’t she a beauty?” They admire it for a moment and then he points to a smaller, lower-level BMW that’s actually the one Albert Brooks’ character is getting. He says, “… mine looks a like a turd compared to that one.” The salesman tells him that given the choice, he would pick Albert’s car every time. Albert says, “You’re an idiot, Dave.”

The really good stuff is worth it. And we all know it. That’s why they call it “The Really Good Stuff.”

Lately I hear a lot about small businesses going to places like Crowdspring and Elance to get cut-rate design work. And no, I’m not talking about the newer artists there who are actually trying to get a professional foothold in their industry, but the practice of skipping right over to the bid column and choosing a designer based on the cost as compared to a pack of gum.

Um… what are you doing? No really. What are you doing?

Let’s think about this for a minute or… hopefully longer, because holy crap is that the worst direction ever when you’re establishing your brand. Your brand! Your baby! Your World-changer!

I empathize with the plight of the small biz owner. I truly do. See, I am a small biz owner. I know how this goes. You’re starting a business or launching a product and you’ve collected rates of awesome web designers or artists. You think, “For Christ’s sake, I could feed a family of twelve in Sumatra on that.”

You start reflecting on the sucking sounds from your bank account shower drain and give up.

So the original intention to make something awesome becomes, let’s do this as cheaply as possible.

Thankfully, I have solutions for you that don’t involve hiring a foreign sweat shop of teens making 3 cents an hour for cranking out graphics in Photoshop. There are ways to get your Awesome without killing anyone or robbing a 7-Eleven. I’ll show you how.

It’s about getting creative. It’s about planning for the future. It’s about treating your business like you mean business.

But first, say hello to my little friend, The Later.

My friend The Later

Why pay more than $50 for a design when there are 100 eager starving artists on Elance who will jump on your post so giddily that they’ll tell you, “$30 and I’ll do it in 24 hours!”

It’s because of The Later.

It’s like going to a street fair. You’re hungry. You see a hot dog stand selling $15.00 dogs. Suddenly, a strange man jumps in front of you, holding a hot dog. “I’ll sell you this hot dog right now for only $1.00!”

Wow, what a deal! It looks and smells pretty yummy.

What about later?

Say you buy the $15.00 dog from a stand. It’s yummy, but you get really sick… later. At least you know where to go and either get your money back and point the health department in the right direction so others don’t get sick, too.

Or, you could find yourself saying this to the ER people: “Groan.. I don’t know… some dude… $1.00… ran away…”

If it was an awesome hot dog (chances are the $15.00 hot dog came with more than a bun and some ketchup) you might want more, or at least be able to tell your friends where to get one, too. Or, you could find yourself saying, “Oh, I don’t know… some guy.. street fair.”

Often I hear from small business owners who went to Elance or Crowdspring and they don’t even know the name of the person who designed their logo or their presentation. “Don’t know, it was one of those sites… you know, those freelance sites?” Then comes the flippy, amorphous hand gesture that says, “I don’t know… they’re all the same and it was so cheap.”

What about later?

Later, when they go to get their logo reproduced on a large banner and they can’t find the person who did it and who… has the original files.

So they have to hire another artist to recreate their logo for this one thing. More money. Later.

Eating my own cooking

From someone who’s paid a lot for web design and copy writing services, I can only tell you that finding, working with, and paying for an individual one-on-one is worth every penny – even if it’s a lot of pennies. Getting exactly what I wanted in a landing page and having my site copy convert better than it has in the last two years was worth my hard-earned dollars.

I already had a “pretty okay” landing page and the copy I wrote myself was “pretty good.”

So why would I seek the cheapest rate possible to get what I already had? I’m not into throwing money away, unless it’s on hats.

When I need some more copy written or my theme updated, I know exactly where to go. Sure, I’ll need to bank some cash to get the job done, but later I won’t be urging my friends to tell me it looks great when in fact we both know it sort of sucks. Friends and relatives won’t tell you how bad your logo looks, but they will complement you on saving money.

Rather than beat you over your nicely coiffed head (how much did you pay for that?), I’ll give you some real solutions to getting what you want without going broke.

By the way, the people who helped me with my site are Copylicious and Calyx Design. Hire them if you really want it done right.

Suggestions for the low on cash

So your wallet is a little thin. Okay. We’ve all been there. But you still need the Awesome, right? Just because your cash flow isn’t… flowing, doesn’t mean you settle. Get your awesome. Here’s how:

Suggestion 1: Ask yourself what you really need

Maybe you don’t need custom design. If you need a cute little cartoon for your blog post, you can pick one up for under $10 on istockphoto.com.

There’s nothing wrong or unethical about that. Rather than hire a pro photographer for a simple photo on a blog post, I’ll download one from iStock photo. If I was designing an entire ad campaign or working on a large client project, I would hire a pro to get something more custom.

Key word, that. Custom.

If you just need to get to your shift at Taco Bell, that used Ford Fiesta is a good deal. If you need to take your real estate clients around town, the Mercedes sedan is a much better choice.

It’s about what you need. So think hard about what you really need.

If you’re creating a kick-ass e-book and need custom illustrations that complement your ideas, expect to pay a lot. Something you work so hard on should look completely amazing, not pasted together with patchwork Microsoft clip-art.

If you’re creating a new custom logo for your small business, that’s more than slapping a graphic on some text. There’s a lot to think about there. That kind of consulting and conceptualizing and talking to you about your brand isn’t something that should be slapped together or pulled out of a bargain bin.

If anyone ever tells you that your crappy logo isn’t hurting your business, they are wrong. Just because you get some business despite your crappy logo doesn’t mean it’s doing the best job for you. At some point, you’ll want to play a bigger game and that logo will have to go.

Super cheap logo tip: Can’t afford to pay a lot for a logo right out of the gate? Don’t pay medium or cheap, either. Do it yourself. Just choose a nice, legible font and type out the name of your business. Times, Helvetica, Arial, Georgia.. something very plain that exists on your computer. Make it black and bold, but don’t go any further. No clip-art, no Olde English or Scripty. Plain and legible are your friends right now.

That will buy you more time to build your business so you can get a really great logo. Plus, it won’t confuse anyone later when the artist integrates your cute puppy idea with it.

If you’re writing a blog post about sandwiches and just want a goofy cartoon sandwich dude, consider searching through the bargain bin. Save your money for the e-book, the web site or the marketing campaign.

Suggestion 2: Create an alternate payment arrangement

Some designers will work with you on a payment plan. I’ve done this with select clients and it can work out nicely for both parties. Every artist is different and will have their individual options (some will say, “No friggin’ way!” which is their option). In my case, I’ll take a deposit to start and collect the remaining on delivery. Sometimes I’ll even extend to a net 30 plan; it really depends on the project and the client. Make an original offer that clearly benefits both of you. You’ve got nothing to lose.

Suggestion 3: Barter

I’ve had a tattoo offer sitting on the shelf for over a year. I did some work a while back for a friend who has a tattoo studio. I can get an awesome tattoo of whatever I want whenever I want, but I’ve just been too wishy-washy about claiming it (Really need to do that. Note to self).

If you know tattoos, you know that’s a huge value.

If you’re opening your hair salon, try bartering some web design for a new ‘do. You get the picture.

There are also a few sites popping up on the web that are strictly for bartering services. One in particular that I like is DibSpace. Using their system, you can get anything from massage to auto parts by exchanging your services.

Money is not the object

If saving money in business is your main concern, you’re going to lose it. It’s better to go without the logo (for awhile) or the great e-book design than risk putting mediocrity into the world.

You spend so much time figuring out how to make your business matter, how to have impact, maybe even change the world. Good on ya, as the Aussies say.

Don’t piss it all away just to save a few bucks. You’re better than that.

Think about your own biz for a minute. You’re not in this alone, you’re in a community of other small businesses who have an advantage over huge corporations because you can work with people on a more personal level. You might think that buying Fair Trade coffee is a sound, ethical decision. This is the same thing. It’s not about you saving as much as possible, it’s about putting money into a system that pushes an entire community of small businesses forward.

Before you dive into the Wal-Mart happy face bin of graphic design for a quickie sale, consider the bigger picture.